Ghosts of the Tristan Basin: A Powder Mage Novella

by Brian McClellan

  “Taniel Two-shot to see Lindet,” he said.

  The big city man at the door looked like a whorehouse bouncer. His eyes were even glued to the notebook in one hand, and he said without looking up, “You’ll wait like the rest of the riff-raff. Back of the line.”

  Taniel glanced over his shoulder. He was not waiting for several hours to attend an urgent summons. “I’m with the Tristan Ghost Irregulars,” he said. “We’ve been summoned by the Lady Chancellor.”

  “So has everyone else.”

  “Look, I was told…”

  “I don’t care what you’ve been told,” the man said, finally looking up. “If I have to tell you to the back of the line once more I will knock in all those pretty white teeth of yours.”

  Taniel felt a spike of anger in his belly and stepped forward. “You want to try that?” he asked quietly.

  “Boy, I will… “ the man said, grabbing Taniel’s lapels.

  A voice cut him off. “Devan, are you talking back to my friends?”

  Ben Styke appeared out of the crowd. He’d removed his armor, and now wore a yellow cavalry jacket, the stars of a colonel pinned proudly to one lapel, three lances pinned to the other. He wore a necklace on a silver chain, with a heavy skull hanging from the end, a lance through one empty eye socket. Even out of his armor he seemed unbelievably big, not a quarter shy of seven feet tall with arms that could choke a swamp dragon.

  Devan made a strangled sound in the back of his throat and removed his hands from Taniel’s jacket. “They have to wait in line just like everyone else. The Lady Chancellor’s orders.”

  Styke put one hand on Devan’s shoulder, squeezing until he elicited a gasp. “Lindet sent me out into that stinking swamp to find them. You think I’d put up with that shit if it wasn’t important?”

  They were ushered inside without further argument and soon found themselves in the chapel vestibule. The thick church doors managed to suppress the noise of the outside crowd to a low hum, and the inside was pleasantly devoid of the jostling crowds. A few small groups, no larger than a dozen in each, conferred quietly throughout the chapel. Taniel could hear their nervous titter as he entered and saw their expectant glances toward the front of the room.

  Styke marched Taniel and Ka-poel up to where the altar had been replaced by a wide, wooden desk. It was covered in maps, messages, and papers, not unlike the desk of Taniel’s father back home.

  Lindet was a woman with soft, round features and blond hair a few shades lighter than Styke’s. She looked up, and Taniel was immediately taken by her eyes. They were blue like the sky on a clear sunny day, and had the fire of ambition in them that he saw in young officers ready to prove themselves by charging into the face of enemy grapeshot. There was a flicker of interest as her gaze passed over him, pausing on Ka-poel, and then moving on to Styke. Taniel was shocked at how young she was—twenty-three or twenty-four, perhaps. She was not tall, nor particularly striking, and she might be mistaken for a mild-mannered librarian if you came across her in the street. But her eyes…

  This was the Fatrastan governor who’d spearheaded the revolution against Kez?

  “Lindet,” Styke said, interrupting the narrow-faced man whispering in Lindet’s ear.

  Lindet held up one finger, waiting until the messenger had finished, then dismissed him with a wave. He fled to a smaller desk in the corner of the room. “Styke.” She spat the name, glancing at Taniel and his companions as if they were supplies being delivered on her doorstep. “You bring me the Tristan Ghost Irregulars?”

  “That’s us, ma’am,” Taniel said.

  Lindet pursed her lips. “Who’s the Palo?”

  “Local girl,” Taniel answered. “She’s my guide and spotter.” Ka-poel crossed her arms, scowling at him. He did his best to ignore her.

  “And you’re Two-shot?” Lindet asked. Her eyes bore into him, studying him as thoroughly as he might inspect his rifle before a fight.

  It was a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ve heard good things about you,” she said, without any of the warmth that usually accompanied such a statement. “If I had a hundred of you, the war would be long over. But I don’t. Tell me, do you think your father would support an Adran alliance with Fatrasta against the Kez?”

  Taniel was immediately taken aback by the question. “I wouldn’t presume to speak for him. But it’s uh, probably not a good time. He’s focused on domestic issues.”

  “I see.” She leaned forward slightly, her study of Taniel’s face intensifying, before tilting her head slightly as if to look over her shoulder. The narrow-faced man quickly rushed to her side. “I’ve made my decision,” she told him. “Get me Petrov and je Stoy. And those fools over there. They’ll want to know as well.”

  What decision? Taniel shot a worried glance at Ka-poel, but the girl seemed pensive, all her attention on Lindet like a mongoose watching a snake. Styke stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking mildly interested in the proceedings as the messenger slipped out through the back of the church.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am,” Taniel said, “you summoned us here in an emergency. Do you have an assignment for us?”

  “Patience, Two-shot,” Lindet said. “You’ll have killing to do before the week is out. But circumstances have changed since I sent Styke to look for you.”

  Styke perked up. “What’s changed? Do we have more reinforcements?”

  “No,” Lindet said. “That’s the problem. We’ve got barely three thousand fighters here. They range from skirmishers to infantry to suicidal madmen.” She flicked an annoyed glance at Styke, who grinned back at her. “We have a single Privileged of our own, who can’t hope to match the four the Kez have sent.”

  “Three,” Taniel said. “I killed one.”

  “Three the Kez have sent.” Lindet made a note and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I like Planth. It’s well protected inside the Tristan Basin, fairly inaccessible to the Kez armies but with a good enough highway that I can send messengers in and out at speed. My original plan, when I heard the Kez had sent an army, was to defend the city so it would remain my seat of power.” She paused, pursed her lips, and continued, “I was going to have the Ghost Irregulars lead four hundred skirmishers to harry the Kez flank as they approached the city. Our infantry to meet theirs in open battle, and our cavalry to hit their other flank. But that won’t work any more.”

  “We don’t have enough men?” Taniel guessed.

  “We don’t have enough men,” Lindet confirmed.

  “What about the reinforcements from Redstone?” Styke asked.

  “They’re not coming,” Lindet replied, her voice dripping with acid. “They claim they have their own problems, and if Redstone isn’t under considerable duress when I arrive, I’ll drag the garrison commander in front of a firing squad. Without help from Redstone, we can’t hope to hold out here.”

  “What, may I ask, is our next step, ma’am?” Taniel asked.

  The narrow-faced messenger appeared from the back of the church, leading a small procession of administrators dressed in fine suits and top hats. They bowed and scraped before Lindet, though the expression on her face said she’d rather they not, and once a few more of individuals had joined them Lindet answered Taniel’s question.

  “We’re retreating,” she announced.

  “You mean like I said you should have a week ago?” Styke asked.

  There was an audible silence following the remark. Someone swallowed loudly. Taniel got the distinct impression that not many people got away with talking back to Lindet.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “Exactly like that.”

  “Good.”

  “Kuskan,” she called to her messenger. “Pack everything. But do it quietly. I don’t want to cause a panic.” She turned her attention back to her administrators. “We’re going to withdraw under cover of darkness and take the Basin Highway up to the Cypress Road, where we’ll cu
t across toward Redstone. We’ll regroup there and assess our losses.”

  Taniel frowned. It made sense, of course. The government was too important to stand behind such a risky battle. They should run. But once Lindet and her camp pulled out, it left behind a vulnerable city in the path of a Kez brigade. The Kez were not kind to cities that harbored revolutionaries.

  “What about the people?” Taniel asked.

  “Once we are safely out of Planth, the order will be given to evacuate the city.”

  “We have two days until the Kez arrive,” Taniel protested. “That’s not enough time to empty a city of this size, especially if you don’t even tell them until tomorrow.”

  Lindet’s gaze fell on Taniel and his throat went instantly dry. He felt more than a little foolish for the fact, wondering what his father, a man who’d told kings to piss off, would say about him cowing before a chancellor not even halfway through her twenties.

  “The people,” Lindet said coldly, “will provide a valuable distraction. Once we’ve withdrawn and given the evacuation order, people will panic and flee north along the highway. We’ll leave behind a defense, of course—you and your Ghost Irregulars, some of the soldiers and militia—who will harry the Kez just enough to slow them down. Once the government is safely out of harm, you will withdraw.”

  Taniel felt sick to his stomach. Beside him, Ka-poel bristled like an angry cat. “You expect us to withdraw, leaving ten thousand Fatrastan citizens on the highway, weighed down with all their possessions, at the mercy of a Kez brigade?”

  “Yes. I expect exactly that. I will not waste such valuable assets defending an unimportant city.”

  All around the room, heads nodded thoughtfully as if Lindet spoke the kind of wisdom they expected from their leader. Only Styke seemed at all unsure. “Two-shot is right. They’ll slaughter everyone who tries to run.”

  “And anyone who bothers to stay,” Lindet said. “We can’t win. At least this way, we’ll be able to fight another day with little risk to the government or our field assets. If we’d withdrawn earlier we might have avoided this path, but what is done is done.”

  Taniel searched Lindet’s face for any sign of regret, or perhaps remorse at the idea of leaving a whole city to die. Her eyes were hard, unyielding. She had made her decision and would not bend.

  Pit, he realized. His father would probably like her.

  “No word of our conversation leaves this room,” Lindet announced. “There will no doubt be a tragic slaughter once we’ve gone, and our people can turn it to propaganda to help our cause. These lives won’t be wasted. Two-shot, I expect you to prepare your Ghost Irregulars for combat. And you, Styke, keep your Mad Lancers out of trouble until I need you.”

  Lindet’s tone made it clear that her words were final. With a knot in his stomach, Taniel found himself ushered out of the church and out into the city square, where the crowd seemed even more unruly than when he’d entered.

  All these people, he realized, would be dead by the end of the week.

  Taniel stormed through the street, Ka-poel sprinting to keep up, until he saw a boy sitting on the stoop, left leg missing from the knee down, cap out on the ground in front of him. Taniel dug through his kit until he found a few krana coins and tossed them in the cap.

  “This city have a newspaper?” he asked.

  The boy retrieved his cap excitedly, shaking the coins into his hand and stowing them in a pocket. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Three of them, actually. Thank you, sir.”

  “Which one’s the biggest?”

  “The Planth Caller, sir.”

  “Where can I find them?”

  “The corner of Main and Manhouch. Just keep going two more streets and take a left. Big red sign. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Taniel paused for a moment, eying the direction the boy had indicated, then glanced over his shoulder for any of those thugs he’d seen outside Lindet’s headquarters. No one stood out from the crowd. It would be an easy thing, informing the newspaper of Lindet’s plans. Word would circulate within a few hours, and people would start leaving immediately. Some of them might even have a chance of outrunning the Kez soldiers.

  Ka-poel laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Ka-poel scowled at him and shook her head. She pointed at the boy he’d just asked for directions, then cupped a hand over her ear. I heard that.

  “So?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes and pulled him toward the nearest alley. Once they’d gotten out of the crowd, she turned on him, gesturing so quickly that he couldn’t follow any of it. Taniel glanced toward the crowd, impatient. He needed to get to the newspaper. The sooner people knew what was happening, the better. “Pole! Slow down. What is it?”

  She pointed at him, then mimed a hangman’s noose. You’re going to get yourself killed.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, playing dumb. He knew exactly what she meant.

  Ka-poel mimicked a crown on her head, then pointed at him and mimed the hangman’s noose again.

  “I’m not scared of Lindet.”

  She made a book out of her hands.

  “Yes, I’ve heard the stories about her. And they’re just that: stories.” Everyone had heard the stories about Lindet; that people had disappeared after insulting her, that she’d had officers quietly executed for disobedience. He’d always passed them off as Kez propaganda. Even now, knowing she would abandon Planth without a second thought, he didn’t believe the more fanciful tales of her wrath.

  But they did give him pause. “All right,” he admitted, “There will be reprisal for disobeying her orders. But you don’t know my father’s reputation. What’s she going to do to the son of the Adran field marshal?” The idea of hiding behind his father made his stomach turn, but some things were more important than pride.

  Ka-poel didn’t look as if she believed that. She punched him in the shoulder, shaking her head and pointing to herself and then making a circular motion.

  “What do you mean, what will happen to you?” Taniel frowned. “If she kills me, you’ll just go back to your tribe. No one will come after you.”

  Ka-poel snorted and punched him again.

  “Ow! Look, Pole, somebody has to do this and it’s not going to be anyone in her inner circle. She’s going to get all of these people killed.”

  She pointed at him, then made a circular gesture and mimed a pistol going off next to her head.

  “How am I going to get them killed?”

  She threw her hands up, making a panicked face and running back and forth from one wall of the alley to another. She stopped, pointing at him, miming a hangman’s noose. Then the crown again, and a handing-over motion.

  It took Taniel a few moments to work out what, exactly, she meant. “You think I’ll cause a panic, get myself court-martialed, and maybe even hand Lindet over to the Kez?”

  Yes.

  Taniel paced the alley, trying to force himself to calm down. He was furious that Lindet would leave so many people to die to screen her own escape. It was something no good Adran soldier would stomach, and Taniel’s father was known all over the world for his merciless tactics. But Ka-poel had a point. Lindet’s strategy was the only one available to them if they were going to make the most of this mess.

  Lindet should have left the moment she heard the Kez were coming for her. She should have evacuated the city with the very next breath. But there was nothing Taniel could do about any of that now. “Half these people won’t even leave,” he admitted out loud. “They’ve built houses, planted farms, started families. Settlers that have come as far out as Planth did so because they don’t have anything else. This is their home.”

  Ka-poel nodded in agreement. She squatted, making a quick sketch in the mud of the alley floor. It was a square with smaller squares at each of the corners. A fort. She pointed at it, then firmly at the ground.

  “You think the garrison will remain?” Tan
iel asked.

  She nodded again.

  He mused over that thought. Frontier garrisons like the one in Planth were often permanent fixtures, their members raised from the local militia, giving them more reason to stay and defend the city in the case of an organized attack by hostile Palo or a local warlord. Ka-poel was right. They’d stay even if Lindet ordered them out of the city.

  Taniel found a crate to sit on, putting his chin on his fist and staring out at the passing traffic. “The garrison has five hundred men,” he said. “Even assuming none of them run, they’ll be slaughtered by the Kez brigade and their Privileged.”

  Ka-poel pointed at him then mimed firing a rifle.

  “I don’t know if I can kill the Kez Privileged before they come within range of the city. Besides, even if I take out their Privileged that’s still five thousand infantry and auxiliaries. You think I can handle all that myself?”

  Ka-poel rolled her eyes. She made a creeping motion with one hand, the signal she used to indicate the Tristan Ghost Irregulars.

  “There’s less than three hundred of us,” Taniel said.

  Ka-poel mouthed the words, then get help.

  Taniel sighed, shaking his head. He had a great fondness for Ka-poel. She was clever, dangerous, and funny. She was an outcast from her own tribe, the way he felt so often among other soldiers. But she didn’t understand large-scale logistics. Even if he managed to convince a half dozen militias to stay and help fight the Kez, it was a losing battle—the whole reason Lindet was retreating in the first place.

  “There’s got to be another option,” he said. He sat thinking for several minutes before the very beginning of a plan began to form in his head. It was reckless, but it was better than letting Planth burn just so Lindet could escape.